Role
UX/UI design, Content Strategy, UX Research, Prototyping
Context
4-week project for a senior UX design course at Simon Fraser University
Team
5 design students
As a student project for a UX design course, our team designed a web extension on Le Labo's existing e-commerce website through an engaging narrative experience. Through City Stories, we aim to extend Le Labo's stream of customers to the growing online fragrance market by leveraging their exclusive brand concept.
AS THE PROJECT LEAD
I conducted the initial client research and framing of the context. My responsibilities included co-leading content strategy, specifically focusing on drawing insights from client research, user interviews and user testing in order to lead and shape the team’s design decisions and scope. For our final product, I contributed to the management of user flows and prototyping, specifically designing the transition between each section of the narrative to increase immersion. As a content strategist, I was considerate of the flow between the existing e-commerce site and our intervention while ensuring that our digital execution conveyed our core concept to the users through a quality experience.
LE LABO'S CITY EXCLUSIVES
Le Labo is a New York-based luxury fragrance company that is competent in producing handcrafted unisex perfumes in-store. In addition to the 17 fragrances they offer year-round, they have a city exclusive line of fragrances that are only sold at their respective cities. However, for a limited one-month period in September, these exclusive fragrances are available worldwide.
LACK OF INFORMATION ONLINE
While Le Labo’s intent of the limited time frame is to maintain exclusivity, customers are unable to make an informed purchase due to the lack of information that is available. Although short descriptions are provided, customers expressed lack of confidence and the difficulty of shopping high-end fragrances without a clear idea of what it may smell like.
INSIGHT- DRIVEN PROCESS
Through primary and secondary research, we synthesized three insights to drive the project:
The online fragrance market is growing increasingly due to convenience.
Customers are unable to smell the perfume before purchase so they resort to external websites to research reviews.
Samples are bought to help drive the decision to buy.
These insights supported the development of our persona – an investigative customer who is looking to find a scent for himself online.
MAPPING THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY
Currently, their website provides very limited information describing their perfumes in addition to a lack of a review section. This breaks the shopping flow of the customer in which they resort to other websites. In order to address this customer friction, we decided to intervene in the research stage of the journey of purchasing perfume online.
FRAMING
In order to help customers make quick and informed decisions to buy perfume online, we proposed Le Labo City Stories as an extension to their existing e-commerce website.
SCENT AS A STORYTELLING NARRATIVE
City Stories provides an experiential journey that guides them through the fragrance notes as if they were to wear it for the day. The story of each note unfolds through a narrative of one’s experience of the city that inspired it, beginning from a pleasant arrival to an exploration that leads to a lasting impression of the journey.
Black and white stills transitions into coloured videos to increase immersion and ease customers into each note. The transitions simulate entering the experience as the photos zoom in and fade out.
VISUALIZATION THROUGH METAPHORS
Fragrances are composed of three layers of scent, also known as notes, with each one purposefully providing a different scent over time. The top note provides a brief first impression of the perfume, while the heart note blends with the base note which enables the perfume to last on the skin for a longer duration. We depicted these notes as story arcs of the journey.
STIMULATING OTHER SENSES
We exploited auditory and visual senses to depict the notes of each scent to help drive the immersion of the experience and to support their purchase decision. Using fragrance notes as a metaphor, the videos are edited to mimic the duration of each note. For instance, the top note simulates a faster pace, while the base note simulates a slower, lingering sensation.
REVIEWS AND OPINIONS
Customers can check 'Reviews' from verified buyers to see other people’s opinions of the fragrance without having to leave the website. We depicted them as digital postcards, using handwritten letters for more reality and empathy.
POST-ENGAGEMENT
After purchase, a follow-up email is sent to customers, inviting them back to join the postcard community and send feedback on their purchased scents.
VALUE FOR BOTH ENDS
With City Stories, Le Labo is able to take another step into the growing online fragrance market with an opportunity for a larger stream of customers while maintaining the City Exclusive collection as an exclusive product line. Simultaneously, customers are able to gain access to information that goes beyond written descriptions and scent diagrams, giving them a fun experience and satisfying purchase through resonating with the fragrance and its respective city.
TAKEAWAY
It was challenging to define a project goal that provided values for both, the client and the end-users. With many pain points that arose during our numerous user tests with potential customers, we were easily distracted by attempting to solve everything that our testers were dissatisfied with. As a consumer myself, I easily fell into the trap of empathizing with the end-users too much; however, we focused on maintaining a neutral mindset through quick cycles of ideation, rejection, testing, and iteration, which made us revisit our initial goal and intent every time we found ourselves lost.
